DONNA KINNEY,
WOMAN RELIGIOUS
by Adam Watson
(2001)

    "I had boyfriends in high school," Sister Donna Kinney explained.

     We were sitting there, in a comfortable office in the Caritas Medical Center.  Sitting on opposite sides of a small table, a tape recorder between us.  She was talking, and the tape recorder and I silently listened.
     "I wasn't sure if I wanted to dedicate my life to the Church." I almost heard the capital C.  "So I went into a church across the street, lit a candle, and begged God, ‘Don't make me do this.  Don't make me do this!'" A small laugh, as she readjusted her jacket.
    That was forty years ago.  God apparently had made her, and I was talking to a nun, full of charm and earthy humor.  Wearing a cardinal red dress jacket.

    Donna Kinney was born and raised in Louisville.  "I did all of the typical growing up things that kids do; I took dancing lessons and piano lessons, I was on the volleyball and softball teams," she remembers.  Kinney went to Presentation Academy High School.  As graduation neared, she considered her options.  She almost became a nurse; she even took and passed the entrance exam.  But the Sisters of Charity of Nazareth (SCN), who had opened "Prez" in 1831 (Spillane 161), began pulling her toward another life.  "In a way, I was attracted by what they did.  Their missions were attractive.  Working in Alabama, or India."  However, she still thought she could best serve her fellow men and women as a nurse.  One day, she drove a Sister – for Sisters then were not allowed to drive –  to the Nazareth campus in Bardstown, Kentucky.  The comradeship and kindness of the Sisters toward one another appealed to her, but it was Nazareth itself that sealed the deal.  "Beautiful, absolutely gorgeous place," Donna said, smiling.  "There was something there that grabbed me."
    She lit her candle, and her career as a secular nurse ended.

    SCN was begun by Father John Baptist David (later Bishop) in 1812, with three Sisters in a log cabin in Bardstown (Spillane 10).  One of those Sisters, Catherine Spalding (1793-1858), became the first Mother Superior of SCN at nineteen years old (Spillane 25).  She was elected Superior four times over the course of her life.  "She was a real woman of vision," Kinney remarked.  "She was not afraid of standing up to anybody."  Under her leadership, Nazareth (the name Father David gave the congregation) grew into a respected and famous community.  Spalding established schools, infirmaries and orphanages.  At Nazareth's first commencement, in 1825, Henry Clay came to speak:

Then he went on to point out that there was an important place for women – educated women – in the state of Kentucky and in the nation. [A student] saw Mother Catherine nod slightly in agreement with this and caught herself smiling, for Mother had said the same thing dozens of times.  She never grew tired of impressing on her young charges the necessity of developing their spiritual and intellectual talents to the utmost in order to serve God and country better.  (Spillane 129)

If not for SCN, Kinney said, "I would have never gotten the education I have.  And I don't know if I would have developed my values, my deep values."

    When you entered the novitiate, she explained, you took college courses.  There were three "tracks" to choose from: nursing, care of children, and education.  Although she listed her preferences in that order, she ended up getting assigned to teach, and got her B.S. in Education at Spalding University.  In 1962, she got her first job, teaching an all-black class of first graders in Bardstown.  There was a particular student she remembered fondly.  "Johnny Johnson," she mused.  "One day, I was helping him put on his coat.  He said, ‘Sister, I wish you was my mother.'  It was so sweet, and I hugged him.
    "I then found out from his eighth grade brother that he had the mumps!"
    For a month Kinney was sick.  When she was well she went to another school, this time to teach seventh grade.  She went from petrified to loving it.  Still, bad health persisted.  "In those days, you had to ask the Superior for permission to take a nap.  I was doing that every day."  Finally, she was sent to a hospital in Memphis, and was diagnosed with hepatitis.  For six weeks she lay ill.  She came back to Nazareth and stayed in the infirmary from August 1963 to February 1964.  During those six months, the doctor allowed her only one hour out of bed.
    Again, Kinney recovered, and went back to teaching.  Her next assignment was in London, Kentucky, leading classes in a two-room schoolhouse, then to another school in St. Clairesville, Ohio for three years.  She began to long for nursing, or working with those in need: "I hated the routine of teaching, doing the same thing every day."  For her own amusement, she taught herself how to play the guitar.  Shortly thereafter she began teaching a class of students to play, its membership swelling to more than fifty.
     "That's crazy, isn't it?" Donna said.
     I smiled.
     "That's okay, you can call me crazy."
    Sister Donna and her fellow troubadours would put on shows for their families.  At some point in the evening, all fifty guitarists would be playing on stage.  This, of course, lead to guitar masses.  It started with just the children's mass once a month, but because of its popularity, it became a weekly Sunday occurrence.  She continued to teach, going to Mt. Vernon, Columbus and Tiltonsville, Ohio.  Finally, in 1969, she convinced her Superior to let her do something else.  Kinney got her wish; she did social work from 1969 to 1972 in Columbus, Ohio.
    In 1972, the provincial she knew well became the president of Nazareth.  Donna became her assistant.  She trained as a professional facilitator, getting her masters in organizational psychology from St. Louis University.  Kinney became involved in the "renewal of the church," part of the Vatican II reforms.  She began leading seminars for religious groups, discussing the changes of the Catholic Church.  She never advertised, but word of mouth spread about her seminars, and Donna became a globetrotter for the next nineteen years.  "I've had wonderful experiences traveling – India, Mexico, Australia.  I really love San Antonio, Texas, great, great place.
    "But one day – I had just got back from Rome – and I'm sitting at my breakfast, drinking my coffee.  I have to be at San Antonio the next day.  But I don't want to pack my suitcase, I don't want to get on the plane, I don't want to go to San Antonio, Texas."  Kinney was approaching burnout.  "I was tired of living out of a suitcase.  And as a facilitator, you can never have a bad day.  You are the only person in the room that has to be up.  I realized the importance of alone time and quiet space."
 In 1991, she had lunch with another Sister who worked in healthcare.  The Sister said there was an administrative opening at Saint Mary & Elizabeth's Hospital; would Donna take it?  She fought it at first.  (I could imagine her lighting a candle somewhere.)  "I didn't want to work for an institution.  Didn't want to be behind a desk.  I wanted to get back to working directly with the poor.  I wanna put on my jeans and my sweatshirt and really get down with the downtrodden, people who live hand to mouth."
    Nevertheless, she met with the CEO.  He explained to her that the hospital was not-for-profit, which meant it had to give a substantial portion of money back to the community.  Donna could use her position with the corporation to affect a greater number of those in need than she could as an individual.  It was this point which finally convinced her to take the job.
    Since 1991, Sister Donna Kinney has been the Vice President of Mission for what is now the Caritas Health Center.  She insures that its four core values are carried out: Reverence, Integrity, Compassion, and Excellence.  Kinney has been creative in her compassion.  She began Meals on Wheels, a volunteer program that delivers 142 meals a day to homebound persons.  She also began the Medication Bank, a collaboration with local ministries that uses pharmaceutical company grants to obtain free medicine for those who cannot afford filling their prescriptions.

     I began walking Kinney through some of my questions.

Do you feel being a woman strengthens your faith?

     "No," she said.  "I know men – not even religious men – that have a deeper faith than I do.  I go to church, but I skip around."  She laughed and readjusted her red jacket.  "I'm not rooted in one parish."  Donna paused. "Being a woman . . . it might make a difference, that motherly instinct, I suppose.  But overall, no."

I noted how important SCN was to Louisville during the cholera outbreak in 1832, and the influenza epidemic in 1878 (SCN); they were often the only healthcare providers, all while facing the possibility of contracting an illness and dying, as well as facing Catholic prejudice.  What is it that makes a faith-based hospital different?

    "We're different because we turn no one away, regardless of their ability to pay.  The second biggest difference is we capitalize on our values.  The only reason we're in the business is to continue the healing ministry of Jesus Christ.  Money helps, of course – as they say, no money, no mission."  Kinney related a story of a St. Jude nurse who stayed every day with a sick child three hours after her shift was over.  It is this kind of dedication that goes beyond money.  "We care for the body, mind, and spirit. On our medical charts, we have a spiritual, emotional, psychological, and physical assessment."

What is your personal image of God?

     "I do not picture God as Him . . . but I do not picture God as Her.  I don't picture God, really; I picture Jesus.  But – I picture a loving God, that doesn't want to cause suffering or harm.  On the other hand, there's a lot of suffering in the world.
    "I believe there's a heaven.  I'm not sure there's hell.  I don't think there's a purgatory.  I think that the reason people suffer, some more than others, is that we pay for the sins of others, and sometimes our own sins, and we do so on earth.  We do that - punishment - here on earth.  To me, heaven is not in the sky, it's all around us.  The spirits of those we love are around us.  My parents are probably here right now, helping me try to say the right thing."  Donna laughed.  "I don't think of God as a loving Father.  I just think of him as a loving being."  She paused.  "God is."

For someone becoming a nun today, how is it different from twenty or thirty years ago?

     "It's like night and day.  It's definitely improved.  If things had stayed the way they were, I probably wouldn't be here.  I'm a free spirit.  After Vatican II [in 1965], the day they told us we could wear secular clothes, I did."  Sisters are entering later in life, after their college education.  These new sisters have a world of choices she didn't; they can choose where to go, where to live, who to live with.

What do you like most about your job?

     "I like sitting at the table that makes decisions on health care.  To respond to the needs of those who have less, who have need."

What do you see as the future of healthcare in the United States?

     Kinney fears a day when only the wealthy will have healthcare.  There is currently a shortage of technicians and nurses, resulting in facilities closing down.  For example, a new multi-million dollar health center in Las Vegas cannot open because it doesn't have enough nurses.  "Diversion" is now a common practice, where a hospital has enough beds but not enough staff, so it "diverts" patients to other hospitals.  To solve this quandary, U.S. facilities are recruiting doctors and nurses from Canada, Guam, the Philippines – but this creates ethical dilemmas; should we cause other countries to have their own medical staffing shortages?  Merging of hospital systems will continue, making purchasing of equipment and supplies cheaper.  The concern is maintaining both the quality and the quantity of healthcare.

What do you see as the future of SCN?

     "There will be less sisters in the United States," Kinney put it simply.  (There are currently eight hundred members [SCN]).  "The center will probably be in India."  In 1947, SCN went to India, its first mission outside of the United States.  It has since been to Belize, Central America (1975), Nepal (1977) and Botswana, Africa (2000) (SCN).  It is in these countries that large numbers of women are joining the novitiate.  SCN's changing goals is reflected in its General Assemblies of the last thirty years.  In 1970, it called for "the humanization of values, the relief of poverty, the eradication of racism, and the promotion of peace" (SCN).  In subsequent assemblies, it has asked for support for Central American refugees, voiced opposition to the nuclear arms race, and condemned American military involvement in Central American (SCN).  In 1985, it became active in issues of women's dignity and value worldwide, and most recently, is "challenging abuses of natural resources" (SCN).

Finally, what do you see as the future of Catholicism?

      "I think that major changes have to be made.  And when we get a new pope, I believe it will be more open."  There is a shortage of priests, she notes, because of two factors: priests cannot be married, and priests have to be male.  "This is a man-made rule.  Remember, Peter was married!"  As for Catholic women leaders, Kinney points out that "Catholic health care was started by women religious. They have also lead in education.  It's sad that women's roles are limited."  Once priests can be married, and women can be ordained, perhaps Catholicism can experience growth.  Otherwise, "unless something drastic happens, it might die out."

    We finished the interview, and I turned off the tape recorder.  Thoughtful as always, she reminded me to say hello to my mother, who had worked with Sister Donna several years ago.  I promised to do so, and thanked her for her time.

    "I hope I answered your questions okay," she said, smiling.

     I stood there, thinking: Beautiful woman religious, in a cardinal red dress jacket.

     "Yes," I said, calm as a candle.  "You were great."

Works Cited

Kinney, Donna. Personal Interview. 20 March 2001.

Sisters of Charity of Nazareth Official Website. 1 April 2001. <http://www.scnazarethky.org>.

Spillane, James Maria. Kentucky Spring. Abbey Press: St. Meinrad, Indiana, 1968.

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